The Sage's Secret

by Abhinav Menon

  Dweepa was about to ask this, when his lord spoke. ‘If my birth in the Kali yuga is a secret, then how will you know that I have been born?’

  The sage was stunned, but he recovered quickly. He was aware of his lord’s ability to know what a person was thinking at any given moment. Krishna grinned broadly.

  ‘At times, I have to know what goes on inside a person’s mind. It helps me know if he is an ally or a foe. But in your case, I wanted to know if you have any qualms,’ the lord explained.

  Dweepa bowed. ‘A blessing with which you won’t be born in the Kalki avatar?’

  Krishna nodded ruefully, still playing with the peacock feather. ‘No. A blessing with which I won’t be born in the next yuga.’ He sighed and set the feather aside.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘back to the question you had on your mind.’ Dweepa looked on, readying his stone pencil. ‘How will you know of my birth as the Kalki avatar?’ Krishna muttered, rubbing his hands, deep in thought. Then he joined his palms, rested them on his lips and closed his eyes.

  After a few moments, Krishna opened them and folded his arms. ‘First, let me tell you about the location of my birth. The world will believe that I will be born in Shambala, but that won’t be the case. I will be born here. Kalki’s birthplace will be where Dwarka once stood.’

  Dweepa looked at his lord confused. ‘Where Dwarka once stood? Will … will the city be destroyed, my lord?’

  Krishna turned to Dweepa. He saw great concern in the sage’s dark eyes.

  ‘That’s a story for a different time, Sage Dweepa.’ Krishna smiled a melancholy smile. ‘But know this: when Kalki is born, the signs will be the same as the ones at the time of my birth—heavy rains, strong winds and floods.’

  Krishna paused for a few seconds and then continued. ‘In the Kali yuga, torrential rains and floods will be a common occurrence. So to distinguish my birth from similar events, the skies will turn red with flashes of lightning.’

  Dweepa stared at his lord, wide-eyed, and gulped.

  Heavy rains, strong gusts of wind and red flashes in the sky. So it had all come true, exactly as Lord Krishna had described.

  Dweepa gathered the bundle of leaves and touched the palm-leaf book to his forehead eagerly. His happiness knew no bounds! He was to serve his lord!

  He tied the leaves together and carefully kept the aged manuscript back in its secret hiding place. He closed the wooden panel and placed his ancestor’s portrait back on the wall. Then he sat down in front of the idol and shut his eyes, trying to calm his breathing. Joining his hands in prayer, he bowed to the idol many a time. The smile on the sage’s face reflected his barely contained excitement.

  Dweepa got up and looked out of the window. It was then that it dawned on him that it hadn’t stopped raining. Just like during Lord Krishna’s birth, it was to rain ceaselessly throughout the night.

  The next day, Dweepa found out through the newspaper that due to the incessant rains, floods had occurred in major parts of Gujarat. Gujarat! The state to which Dwarka would have belonged if it had not perished, like his lord had said it would.

  Just one thought nagged at him. The Kalki avatar wasn’t supposed to be born for at least another 2000 years. Then why has he taken birth so soon?

  FIVE

  Karnataka, 2005 CE

  The forest was still, except for the gentle breeze that blew through the trees, rustling the leaves. A group of men sat around a large fire, its flames glowing with bright shades of yellow and orange. The wood crackled as the fire slowly ate through it. At the head of the circle sat a man wearing a billowy red cloak, his face hidden behind a long red hood. All that was visible of this man were his spindly, dark fingers. Another man, wearing a black cloak, his face, too, obscured by a hood, stood behind him. The people sitting around them were wearing saffron robes, like the ones worn by ascetics.

  The red-cloaked man cleared his throat and spoke, looking around the group of men. ‘I am glad that all of you could make it here at such short notice.’

  The men bowed respectfully.

  ‘I am sure all of you are anxious to know why I have called for you. The time, my friends, has finally come …’

  The men looked at each other, not comprehending what their leader was alluding to.

  ‘Those of you who observed the sky on this day last week would have seen a strange sight in the evening.’

  The men looked at each other again, blank expressions across their faces. A few of them shook their heads.

  ‘The sky was awash with blood!’ the red-cloaked man announced.

  A collective gasp rose from his acolytes. ‘That’s … th-that’s impossible, my lord,’ one of them said.

  The man nodded. ‘Yes, it is indeed. But it has happened … I have it on very good authority that this—this sign would appear when the Kalki avatar arrives on earth.’

  A loud gasp escaped the men.

  ‘Does this mean—’ one of them started to ask, but was cut short.

  ‘Yes … Kalki has taken birth! He is finally here.’

  There was a pregnant silence.

  The man in the red cloak continued after a few moments of savouring the effect the revelation had had on the men around him. ‘It’s time to move ahead with our plans. Start recruiting more children. Train them well. Train them to not just be warriors, but also killers!’

  The group of men bowed.

  The red-cloaked man stood up. ‘When the time comes, I want an army of skilled sorcerers at my disposal.’

  The men tipped their heads in understanding.

  The leader then glanced at the man in the black cloak standing behind him, signalling that it was time to leave. The black-cloaked man nodded. And with a loud crack, they both vanished into thin air.

  SIX

  Chennai, Tamil Nadu, 2025 CE

  The football rolled along the edge of the road, gathering mud in the drizzle. A six-foot-tall, swarthy, well-built boy trailed it, a nonchalant air about him. He was not bothered about the gentle downpour from the sky. When he got a clear shot, he swiftly kicked the ball towards his teammate. The other boy raced and got it under his control, dribbling it towards the opponent’s goal, which was a gap between two bricks placed twelve feet apart. The boys were playing gully football, with each team having five players, an old football to toss about and bricks for makeshift goals. The dark-skinned boy darted towards his opponent’s post, drops of rain streaming down his face. His teammate, observing the movement, booted the ball back to the boy.

  The ball whizzed past the defender, who had stuck his leg out in hopes of stopping it. But the dark-skinned boy was too quick; he’d already rushed forward to claim the ball. His focus was hard to crack as his team needed just one more goal to win. At present, the score was tied—2–2. The boy stopped the ball, aimed at the wide gap between the left goal-brick and the goal-keeper’s right leg and kicked. The goalkeeper raised his hands to block the ball, but was late by a fraction of a second. The ball flew past the goalkeeper, barely missing his fingers, into the goal.

  Amid the shouts and screams of victory, the dark-skinned boy rushed to his teammates to celebrate. They thumped his back. Even his opponents came over to cheer him.

  ‘Nice kick, Anirudh!’

  ‘Good job, dude!’

  ‘What a goal, man!’

  In their drenched clothes, the boys walked to their housing complex, which was only a couple of minutes away. All of them lived in the same apartment complex, comprising five blocks, and played on the abandoned road behind it. Not only that, they had attended the same school and now were in the same college. They were set to enter the third and final year of their graduation. As the boys slowly made their way to their complex, they discussed some of the spectacular moments of the match.

  Anirudh was in the centre of the moving group. He walked while softly kicking the ball ahead of him, listening to the chatter and adding his two cents every now and then. As they reached their courtyard, the friends waved each
other goodbye and, fishing out the keys from his capri pants, Anirudh kicked the football up into his hands. Entering his first-floor flat, Anirudh tucked the grimy football in the corner behind the door.

  Nobody was home. His parents had gone to their offices. His father, Bhaskar, worked at an MNC as its regional marketing head. His mother, Mohini, worked at a financial consultancy firm as the head of its Risk division.

  Anirudh had been born in Gujarat. But one year after his birth, his father was offered a promotion and transfer to the MNC’s Chennai branch. Because of his South Indian roots and command over Tamil, Bhaskar was deemed well-suited to take over the operations of the region. So the family shifted to Chennai, the economic capital of south India. And they had lived there ever since.

  Anirudh freshened up and headed to the kitchen to grab a bite to eat. He wolfed down a couple of biscuits and, pouring himself a tall glass of apple juice, slumped on the couch in front of the TV. His vacation had started just the previous day and, as a result, he had a lot of spare time and not much to do with it.

  It was almost six in the evening. His quota of outdoor activity for the day had come to an end. He contemplated his remaining options. Watch TV, play games on his PC or read a book? Anirudh decided he would do all three, one after the other. So he watched a couple of sitcoms, played a fantasy game for half an hour and then started on a spy thriller. He liked spy thrillers as well as quest-based adventures. But he was an even bigger fan of Indian mythology.

  When his parents returned a couple of hours later, he went to the gym on the top floor of his building and worked out with his friends. It was his daily routine, and Anirudh liked to keep his body in good shape. He loved being fit, and took great pride in it.

  It was almost 10 p.m. when Anirudh retired to his room after dinner, over which his parents and he discussed their day. Sleep was creeping up on him. But he sat determined on the edge of the bed, a frown on his face. For he was scared of sleeping.

  How I wish I didn’t see those strange dreams every night!

  Anirudh cupped his face with his palms and closed his eyes. The dreams had started around a month ago and came to him like weird flashes that he never seemed to forget. Even though he tried his best. He couldn’t find any reason why he was seeing these strange visions. And they seemed to get more elaborate over time.

  In one dream, Anirudh saw himself walking down a road in some ancient city, dressed as a king, adorned in expensive clothes, an exquisite crown and beautiful ornaments. In another, he was slowly making his way into a dense jungle, alone at night, as rain came down softly on him. In yet another dream, he thought he was floating in the air but later realized that he was being carried in a wicker basket, while huge walls of water rose all around him. It had been pouring heavily. As he’d looked up, he’d seen a many-headed snake forming a roof over him, protecting him from the harsh rain.

  Being an avid reader of Indian mythology, Anirudh was aware that particular dream was about the journey of baby Krishna from the prison in Mathura, where he was born, to Gokul, where he was brought up. Anirudh was even more perplexed when he realized that all of these visions were in the first person and that some of these dreams corresponded exactly with what he had read in mythological stories! He was Krishna on the road and in the basket! What he couldn’t figure out was their connection with him and why he was seeing them night after night.

  Anirudh lifted his head and reluctantly lay down in the cool bed. He consoled himself by reasoning that his mind was only recreating the stories he had read, with a first-person point of view, just like in some of the games he played. Resolving so, he slowly drifted to sleep.

  Little did he know that that night’s dream was going to change his life forever.

  Anirudh was seated on a cot inside a hut. An old man, dressed in saffron clothes, was sitting on a cot adjacent to his. It was raining outside, and inside, an oil lamp illuminated the hut. The old man was observing Anirudh, who stared at the ground. Then he felt himself floating away from his body and the scene, and now he was looking at the old man and what he thought was his own self from a third-person view. Anirudh peered closely at the figure seated where he was just a moment ago. The sight of him sent shivers down his spine. Anirudh couldn’t believe it! The man was dark-skinned and had a striking resemblance to him … but it wasn’t him. In fact, he looked a few years older than Anirudh was at present.

  Then the dark-skinned man spoke. ‘I won’t be what I am in my current avatar when I am born as Kalki. I will be born a common man and won’t be all-knowing.’ He laughed softly.

  The elder man asked, ‘Why are you laughing, my lord?’

  With a mischievous smile, the youth replied, ‘Because I am not going to be born as Kalki after all, Sage Dweepa!’

  ‘Then why the name Kalki?’

  ‘Kalki is the name of my avatar, but it won’t be my birth name.’

  Dweepa’s face wore a question mark. ‘I didn’t get you, my lord.’

  Lord Krishna smiled. Then, all of a sudden, everything became still. The rains couldn’t be heard, the lamp stopped flickering and Dweepa froze. It was as if time had stopped in its tracks.

  Krishna slowly turned to where Anirudh was standing and said softly, ‘I will be born as Anirudh.’

  It seemed as though the lord had stepped out of the events of the dream and was speaking to him directly, without Dweepa being aware of it! Anirudh was rooted to the spot.

  Then time unfroze and things went back to normal.

  Krishna folded his arms and spoke. ‘First, let me tell you about the location of my birth. The world will believe that I will be born in Shambala, but that won’t be the case. I will be born here. Kalki’s birthplace will be where Dwarka once stood.’

  Krishna locked eyes with Anirudh once again and smiled.

  Anirudh opened his eyes with a start. What was that? his mind screamed.

  He sat up in bed, bathed in sweat. Wiping his wet forehead with the sleeve of his T-shirt, Anirudh looked around his room trying to make sense of what he had seen. Everything seemed to be blurred. He reached for the glass of water by his bedside and gulped it down in one go. Catching his breath, he lay back in his bed.

  ‘Wh-what did that dream mean?’ he muttered.

  He rubbed his eyes. Then he rubbed his forehead. It was something he did when he wanted to focus, to gather his thoughts.

  ‘These … these dreams are getting out of hand. I should stop reading so many thrillers and playing these video games. The stories must have made up the dream,’ he consoled himself.

  Assuring himself that it was the work of his too-creative mind, Anirudh closed his eyes.

  It looked like I was Krishna. Hah … Talk about an overactive imagination! Anirudh smiled doubtfully at his whimsy. Otherwise, how could the name ‘Anirudh’ have been uttered by Krishna so precisely? And Krishna even looked like me!

  Anirudh smirked. Now somewhat at ease, he let his mind drift to the other things that he had seen and tried to rationalize them too.

  Kalki will be born in a place where Dwarka once stood. So that’s all right because I wasn’t born where Dwarka stood … It’s somewhere in the west. If I am not wrong, Dwarka would have been a part of …

  In a flash, Anirudh’s eyes fluttered opened.

  Oh my God! It couldn’t be … His heart rate shot up. Beads of sweat started forming on his forehead.

  ‘Dwarka would have been part of Gujarat! And I was born in Gujarat!’ Anirudh whispered, breaking the silence of the night.

  SEVEN

  Dressed in black robes, with his tall staff in his hand, Kalanayaka was walking through the jungle. The green leaves formed a porous roof above him, through which the bright yellow rays of the sun pierced and lit the forest floor. Dried leaves scrunched under his feet as he neared his destination, about 500 feet away. The sorcerer was returning to his hut.

  A few weeks ago, he had received a message from his guru, telling him to go to Tamil Nadu. Kalanayaka had promptl
y obeyed. Since then, he had been staying in a jungle on the outskirts of Chennai. At present, he was returning home after eating his breakfast at a small food joint.

  As he walked, he recalled an incident that had occurred in a forest similar to this some years ago, during his final year of sorcery training. It had been life-altering, and he remembered every small detail vividly. His mind went back to the scene.

  Ajith rose early that morning and finished his chores. After breakfast, he headed to meet his guru for training. As he approached the teacher’s hut, he saw that his mentor was not in the veranda, where he usually sat. When he reached the hut’s entrance, he found that a note had been left in the window. It was in his guru’s handwriting.

  Meet me in the centre of the forest.

  Ajith folded the note and looked at the forest ahead of him. He had heard some frightening stories about the strange beasts living in its dark depths, but he didn’t know if the tales were true or not. So he walked cautiously to the edge of the green expanse. Fear gripped his heart. What if the stories were true? He shook his anxiety off instantly, feeling foolish for believing such tales, and focused on meeting his guru. He took a deep breath and entered the forest. With slow steps, he walked through the eerie jungle.

  Trees bordered the forest pathway, providing him shade from the scorching sun. He’d been walking for ten minutes along the path when he reached a clearing. The ground was free of undergrowth. At a distance was a large banyan tree. Under the tree, he saw his guru meditating. Dry leaves lay scattered around him. Ajith walked slowly to the banyan, trying his best to not disturb his teacher, and waited.

  After a few moments, the teacher opened his eyes and looked at Ajith.

  ‘I have been waiting for you,’ he said softly.

  His guru was then in his early fifties, his body still agile and strong. A long silver beard flowed down till his chest, and his eyes were serene black pools.

  He motioned his student to sit opposite him. Ajith sat on the ground. Both of them were in saffron robes. His guru took a deep breath and closed his eyes. After a few moments, he turned his steady gaze towards Ajith.